


all the things we could do

by BellumGerere



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Black Emporium Exchange, F/M, Love Confessions, Mild Sexual Content, when i say mild i mean Mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:53:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26220697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellumGerere/pseuds/BellumGerere
Summary: The Neria Surana that Anders meets at Vigil's Keep is very different from the Neria Surana he remembers from the Circle. That's not entirely a bad thing.
Relationships: Anders/Female Surana (Dragon Age)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11
Collections: Black Emporium 2020





	all the things we could do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kunstpause](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kunstpause/gifts).



In the end, it takes Anders less than a week to crack.

The events of that particular week are one oddity after another—he wasn’t expecting that this particular escape from the Circle tower would end with becoming a Grey Warden—but, somehow, running into Neria has been the strangest. Or _Warden-Commander Neria Surana_ , as she’d somewhat smugly corrected him before throwing her arms around him in the middle of battle. She’s not the same woman she was when she left the Circle, that much is clear, but it doesn’t take long for them to fall back into their old routine, joking around with each other as if they’d never been apart.

The old feelings resurface then, too. He hadn’t been much inclined to act on them when they were younger, trapped in the tower, because what if she hadn’t felt the same way? He’d rather keep them to himself than lose a friend. But he thinks that this new, more confident Neria just might return them. She brushes her fingers along his arm affectionately, presses just a little closer than is proper when she slips past him in corridors. She _gives him a kitten_ —it’s this, more than anything else, that convinces him. _You don’t give a kitten to just anybody_ , he thinks, and so when he finally works up the nerve to knock at her door one night, he feels reasonably assured that things will go well. The worst that could happen is rejection. He hadn’t wanted to chance it in the Circle, but he has a feeling this new Neria wouldn’t let it get in the way of their friendship.

“You’re up late,” she comments when she opens her door to find him behind it. She hadn’t said anything at first, merely stepped back and beckoned him inside, and now they sit next to each other on her narrow bed, enough space between them to be decent. She’s wearing soft leggings for sleeping and a tunic that falls halfway to her knees, and even though it’s far too big for her, when she lifts her hands to pull her dark hair back behind her head he can make out the shape of her underneath it, and a jolt of desire runs through him. _Control_ , he reminds himself. There’s still uncertainty here.

“Maybe Grey Warden Anders is,” he replies, watching as she finishes tying her hair back and shifts on the bed so she’s facing him, one leg tucked up underneath her. It’s true—ever since he completed the Rite, he’s found himself always either hungry or tired; he’s asleep as soon as he lays down most nights this past week, and more often than not Neria is the one to wake him. “Circle Anders would’ve just been getting started.”

Maker, he’d forgotten how much he loved her laugh until he hears it again, soft and breathy and entirely at odds with the woman she’s become. “I don’t think the people here will be quite so susceptible to your pranks,” she says, and when she tilts her head to the side he can see the swing of her hair tied back behind her. It’s late enough that the only light in the room comes from a small lantern and what is able to filter in through the window, but it’s enough. “Or your running off.”

He lets himself smile in return. Most of his memories of the Circle aren’t exactly fond—but the ones with her are, and he knows a joke when he hears it. “I wasn’t planning on running off this time. Unless you try to lock me up, that is.”

She laughs again, her own grin widening to match his. “Now there’s an idea,” she teases, and he finds himself digging his fingers into his thigh through his robe, trying to be discreet about it. Her eyes stay on his face; she hasn’t noticed. Good. “But I wouldn’t. That would make me a bit of a hypocrite, don’t you think? If I got on you for using ma—”

“Are we ever going to act on this?” he blurts out. _So much for subtlety_. Neria raises an eyebrow, looking distinctly amused, but she doesn’t comment. Of course she would make him speak first, he thinks. For all the confidence she’s gained since he last saw her, there are so many things about her that haven’t changed a bit. “The, uh—the flirting, I mean.”

There—the uncertainty he remembers from the Circle. The cautiousness. If he wasn’t so tense, it would almost be comical how quickly the grin drops from her face as she tugs her lip between her teeth. He wants to do it for her, to know the taste of her skin. “Is that what it is?” she asks, and that’s the voice he remembers, too, quiet not only because they were so often hiding from Templars. He doesn’t know how to answer at first, but thankfully the tension doesn’t last long, and she’s smiling again, just the barest quirk at the edges of her lips. “Because I wish someone would’ve told me sooner.”

“I—oh.” He casts around for something to say and comes up short, but hearing her laugh again, this time bringing a hand up to cover her mouth, is worth a moment of awkwardness. He should be laughing along with her, he knows, but something else strikes him first as he watches her lower her hand to curl it around the side of her neck. “Wait. So you’re telling me that the entire time we were in the Circle, we could’ve been—well—”

“Yes.” She seems far more amused by the situation than Anders himself, who is still trying to wrap his head around the fact that she has, apparently, returned his feelings all these years, feelings that had only continued to grow every time he was captured and returned to the Circle. Eventually, she had been one of the only ones brave enough to continue associating with him. But more interesting than going back through the past several years in his head is the way she’s suddenly inching closer to him, so close that he can see the shadow of her eyelashes brushing her cheeks, that he can see the pink creeping up her face. He wants to kiss her—he wants _her_ to kiss _him_ , prove that this isn’t some sort of Joining-induced fever dream.

The thought is barely even finished when she does just that; it’s a fleeting thing, only a quick brush of her lips, as if she’s afraid to do more, but it sets him aflame. He clears his throat, shifts back a little so he can face her more fully. “And…would I be right in assuming that means we should start making up for lost time?”

Her eyes drop down to his mouth. Did she move again? He’s not sure, and at this point he’d be hard-pressed to keep track of anything besides the strength of his desire for her, and when she whispers “yes” again he wastes no time in pulling her over so she straddles him, her hips pressed tightly to his as he kisses her again. He can feel the heat of her as she pushes her hips down, as he does what he’d fantasized about only moments ago and captures her lower lip between his teeth. She groans low in her throat, and before he can fully register the movement he’s flat on his back and she hovers over him, her hands pressed into the thin mattress on either side of his head. He reaches up and pulls the cord from her hair, letting it fall down around her shoulders, and she smiles.

“We don’t need to rush, you know. We’ve got all night,” she says, and the last coherent thought he can remember having is that he thinks he likes the new Neria just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like this started somewhere and then got away from me and ended up somewhere else haha but i hope you liked it!! i've always been interested in the idea of anders and a mage warden knowing each other previously but haven't explored it much, so i was very excited to see this prompt. anders isn't a character that i write much, though, so i hope i did him justice! (that pun was intended but also i am very sorry about it)


End file.
